New FMP 10 Toolbar

[Merit Solutions]

Now that the record browser is on the toolbar rather than the status area, when in preview mode in a custom menu set that shows the status area, the user can not navigate to the next pages - it seems locked. It works fine in FM 9.0

I have allowed toolbars, but apparently that is only for the Formatting Toolbar, but that doesn't help. I am not sure why FM did this. Most screens are landscape and have more space in the horizontal than in the vertical plane to give a status area. I need users to be able to preview pages while preventing them customising the toolbar. Am I missing something?

[David Jondreau]

I think so. Have you actually looked at the Custom Menu set for that Preview mode in FM10A?

I suspect you have one of two issues. Is the toolbar not showing or is it showing but the "rolodex" seems disabled?

If it's the first then its likely the issues is that there's two menu commands, one Show Status Area in FMP 9 and one Show Status Toolbar in FMP10. You need both enabled for it to work between versions.

The second would be a result of not having the [Go To Record] submenu enabled. You need that active for the toolbar record nav buttons to work.

I've heard a lot of criticism over the positioning of the new toolbar and I don't understand it. We are conditioned to scroll down, but scrolling across isn't intuitive. For apps where wrapping makes sense (iPhoto eg) a sidebar makes sense. But layout objects in FMP don't wrap.

[Vaughan]

"I need users to be able to preview pages while preventing them customising the toolbar. Am I missing something?"

One of the new concepts that we developers have to come to terms with is that the toolbar belongs to the user. We developers have NO control over it other than hiding it completely (which to me is akin to us taking our ball and going home).

The toolbar-at-the-top is the current design paradigm and is here to stay.

The key to managing the new toolbar is to use custom menus to control the basic commands at the interface level. Custom menus allow us to disable commands completely (I usually remove the Delete All Records and Duplicate Record commands) or substitute our own scripts instead of the default behaviors. We can also rename commands; the renamed title appears in both the menus and the toolbar icons.

So if the use wants to add the Delete Record command to their toolbar they can: if I've used a custom menu to disable delete records then it just won't do anything.

[Merit Solutions]

Thanks a lot - it was the second issue. I do appreciate that FileMaker wants to give a more Mac-like toolbar and be consistent with certain other Office applications, but most other development apps involving data and graphics use floating or dockable inspectors (iWork, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator etc..) consisting of panels of tools for the developer. Maybe Layout Mode should incorporate this model. A real upgrade would be a complete overhaul of its graphic toolset (1987) and field control interface elements in Layout Mode. I am grateful for the help as always!

[mr_vodka]

Where in pre-10 versions, record navigation via the rolodex was independent of the custom menu set NOT having the [Go to Record] custom menu, in 10 it is now a requirement that it exists in your custom menu set. I find this particularly annoying since I dont want the 'Go to Record Specify' as an option. Sad that a work around has to be created using custom scripts to remove that option and only keep prev/next. :

Of course I only showed the status area in preview mode (FM9) and with 10 we can display the report in Browse mode so it may be a moot point but still an annoyance.